diff --git a/server.js b/server.js
index a97e624d4..fa312caa0 100644
--- a/server.js
+++ b/server.js
@@ -60,6 +60,9 @@ const { Tokenizer } = require('@agnai/web-tokenizers');
 const _ = require('lodash');
 const { generateRequestUrl, normaliseResponse } = require('google-translate-api-browser');
 
+// Create files before running anything else
+createDefaultFiles();
+
 // local library imports
 const AIHorde = require("./src/horde");
 const basicAuthMiddleware = require('./src/middleware/basicAuthMiddleware');
@@ -68,8 +71,6 @@ const contentManager = require('./src/content-manager');
 const novelai = require('./src/novelai');
 const statsHelpers = require('./statsHelpers.js');
 
-createDefaultFiles();
-
 function createDefaultFiles() {
     const files = {
         settings: 'public/settings.json',